Altered erythrocyte membrane protein composition mirrors pleiotropic effects of hypertension susceptibility genes and disease pathogenesis.

Objective: The study was designed to assess the effects of polymorphisms in genes associated with essential hypertension on the variation of erythrocyte membrane proteins (EMPs) in hypertensive patients.

Methods: Major EMPs content was analyzed in blood from 1162 unrelated Russians (235 hypertensive patients, 176 healthy controls, and 751 random individuals from the Central Russia population). Essential hypertension patients were genotyped for 11 polymorphisms of essential hypertension susceptibility genes including ADD1 (rs4961), GNB3 (rs5443, rs16932941), NOS3 (rs1799983, rs2070744), ACE (rs5186), AGTR1 (rs5186), AGT (rs699, rs4762), MR (rs5534), and TGFB1 (rs1800471).